Chapter 4: Spirit of the Ancient Blade

All right! After the last chapter, I was on a roll, so I went ahead and knocked out this one. I want to thank everyone for their reviews and advice. I realize I was a little long-winded in the last chapter, and hopefully that won't be the case here, but this is still more of a "conversational" chapter. Don't worry, though, Link and Ichigo will be kicking butt again very soon!

As always, I own neither Bleach nor Legend of Zelda.

Inside the Garganta…

Link looked around in confusion. Everything was pitch black. He had expected to be instantly transported to this Karakura Town, but instead the portal had just closed as he dashed in, and now he was standing alone in a sea of blackness. He didn't want to move, as he wasn't entirely sure what was holding him up in the first place, and he didn't want to accidentally step off a ledge (if indeed there was any ground at all) and plunge into oblivion.

"Rats, what was it Kisuke tried to yell at me when I was running through the portal? I really wish he'd told me about this before I jumped into that black hole."

Link decided to try out his equipment. The first thing that came to mind was his lantern. He pulled it out and lit it, but the light seemed to stop at the lantern itself. Not wanting to waste the oil, he put it out and decided to try something else. He threw the gale boomerang randomly around a couple of times, but there seemed to be no substance to this strange realm. Link was getting frustrated. He wondered if, since this was the portal used by those Hollows, which were clearly evil creatures, the Master Sword could somehow cut through the darkness that surrounded him. He drew his blade and held it out in front of him, but nothing happened. That was the last straw. Link sat down, still holding the Master Sword and decided that there was nothing to do but wait and hope that if Kisuke and his friends were following him, that they would somehow end up in the same area of nothingness as him.

But as Link sat there, a light emanated from the Master Sword. It was a quick blink, then it was gone. He stared at the magical blade, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him now. But there it was again, another blink of light, then another, and another. The Master Sword began to flash with a soft, white light at increasingly rapid intervals. Link stood up and raised the Master Sword. The flashes grew faster until the blade was shining with a solid white light. Then, the light seemed to leap from the sword and there was a flash of light so bright Link had to shield his eyes for a moment. When he opened his eyes, there in front of him was what looked like a young woman. She floated in the air directly in front of Link, and for a moment the two of them did nothing but stare at each other.

The floating girl looked like a spirit of some sort. Her face looked like it had been carved from a pure blue gemstone. She wore a purple dress that was cut well above her knees, and a cape that covered her shoulders and fell down her back. The right half of the cape was purple too, but the left half was blue like her face. Her legs were covered by what looked like stockings that were covered in a diamond pattern in the same blue and purple colors. The strangest thing about her was that while her cape moved and floated as if held up by her arms, she had no arms or hands that Link could see, so it looked like she had empty sleeves. She stared at Link with solid blue eyes that he could tell were looking directly into his even though she had no pupils. Surprisingly, Link was the first one to break the silence.

"Who...Who are you?" was all he could think to say for now.

"Analysis complete." was all the spirit said in reply. Link didn't have time to be puzzled by this response, though, as she continued to speak. "Subject, Link, 100% match. You are the Chosen Hero, wielder of the Master Sword. I am called Fi, I am the spirit placed within the Master Sword by the Goddess to aid the Chosen Hero. I have been reawakened in this hostile environment to assist you, Link."

"You're…the spirit of the Master Sword?" Link asked. "Why haven't you appeared before?"

"I have been...deactivated…or more accurately, dead, for an unknown amount of time. I was placed within the Master Sword before it was completely forged by the Goddess to aid the Chosen Hero in his quest. When his task was complete, my reason for being was also completed, and my spirit faded away."

"Then what brought you back?"

"…..Answer unavailable at this time. There is an 84% probability that I was somehow reactivated by your need for assistance in this extreme situation."

"Wait, so you can help me get out of this black nothingness?"

"There is a 97% chance that I will be able to guide you out safely, Link."

"Well then, let's get to it! What did you say your name was? Oh, that's right, Fi!" Link held out his hand to her, but Fi only stared at him. Link realized that he had forgotten that she apparently had no arms.

"Oh, uh… sorry Fi. What can you do to get us out of here?"

"I can only guide you, Link. It is you who must get us out of here. This entire dimension is composed of a chaotic mass of spirit energy. I surmise that there is a 93% probability that if focused, this spirit energy could be formed into a solid pathway."

"What does that mean? I don't even know how to do stuff like that, I never learned anything about magic!"

"I do not believe that it will be difficult for you, Link. Simply focus your mind and will the spirit energy into a path."

"Alright, I'll give it a try."

Link tried to focus all his thoughts onto creating a pathway. "I don't care what that sword-spirit-thing says," he thought. "This is a lot harder than she seems to think it is…" But after a few moments of intense concentration, what looked like a thin sheet of ice began to form at his feet.

"Excellent progress, Link." said Fi. "Now you must form the spirit energy into the path ahead of you."

Link continued to focus, and to his surprise, the "ice" began to expand and form a straight path in front of him. Carefully, he took a small step forward. He was again surprised as the path held and didn't break or dissipate at he set foot on it. Emboldened by his success, Link began to take larger steps, taking care not to stop focusing, and soon he was walking along at a brisk pace. He found that as he became more familiar with the process, he could actually look up from his feet and still keep going. He turned to Fi, who was still floating beside him, and decided to ask her some more questions.

"Hey, Fi, how did you know how to get around in here? Have you been here before?"

"Negative, Link. I have never traveled through this dimension before. I cannot leave the Master Sword. I was created to aid the Chosen Hero, and thus I have the ability to analyze any situation and calculate the most logical course of action."

"Well, that's interesting. Wait, you wouldn't happen to know anything about this evil power that Kisuke Urahara was talking about, would you?"

"I have not had sufficient opportunity to analyze the situation, therefore any predictions I might propose would only have a 32% accuracy rating. Such a low accuracy rating is unacceptable, therefore I will withhold opinion until I have conducted further analysis."

"Ok, just thought I'd ask."

"Link?" Fi stopped and looked at him. If her eyes hadn't been completely blank blue orbs Link would have sworn that she looked like she was feeling nervous.

"Yeah?"

"I…wanted to thank you for awakening me."

"Uh, sure. I didn't really do anything, though. You just kind of appeared."

"Yes, but before, when I was first created, I felt nothing. As I aided the Chosen Hero in his task, I came to understand the feeling of happiness. He made me happy, and now that I have reawakened, I feel…happy once again. So, thank you, Link"

Link still wasn't entirely sure that he deserved Fi's thanks, but he nodded his head and answered.

"You're welcome, Fi. I'm happy that I met you."

"Link?" Fi stopped moving again.

"Yes?"

"We have arrived."

Link looked ahead, and almost lost his concentration at what he saw. They had come to what could only be the other end of the portal. Before him was a hole in the darkness that looked out into what he could only hope was Karakura Town. Looking through the Garganta in from the outside was like looking into a black hole, but looking out from inside it at the real world was like looking through a window in a pitch black room. Through the hole he could see what appeared to be buildings made of shining metal, some of which looked as large as Hyrule Castle itself. There were roads of flat stone, and Link could see rapidly moving mechanical –looking things moving very fast along these stone roads. He could see tiny dots moving around like ants on a mound, and he guessed that those were the people that lived in this strange place. Scattered throughout the town were patches of green fields, some of which contained groups of trees. Link looked directly below him, and saw that the Garganta had opened not far above the ground over one of these green, planted fields. It was higher than he preferred to jump, but as Link saw no other way to get down he turned to Fi and decided to ask her advice.

"Do you think it will be safe to jump down there?"

"I calculate a 98.6% chance of survival if you decided to jump, Link."

Link nodded and got ready to jump for it. "That's good enough for me!" he said.

"However," Fi continued. "There is a 22% chance you could incur permanent injuries upon your landing."

"Aw, thanks for that information, Fi!" Link groaned.

"You are welcome, Link." Clearly she did not understand sarcasm.

"Well, there's nothing for it! I've got to jump." Thought Link. So the bearer of the Triforce of Courage steeled himself and leapt from the Garganta.

Well, I hope that wasn't too boring, I realize that I've had two chapters without any action, but you can see why I didn't want to just skip to Karakura Town, right?

I also realize that adding Fi into the story was probably unexpected, but I really felt that having the spirit of the Master Sword manifest would fit in well as Link enters the Bleach universe.

Some of you have asked if Midna will appear in this story. The answer is yes, she will definitely show up at some point in the future, I'm just not quite there yet. If anyone has any thoughts on the best way to bring her into the story, let me know, because I'm not sure what I had planned out to bring her in is all that great.

As always, let me know how I'm doing! I think this is going pretty well for a first story, and I'm going to keep improving it as I go.

It shouldn't be too long until the next chapter, I've been trying to make sure to devote more time to writing. Until next chapter!